N.J. medical duo earns Afghan warlords' trust

HOWELL -- The e-mails from Afghanistan came in almost daily to an unlikely place, a local doctors' office.

The messages warned about impending attacks and provided information about a kidnapped American soldier.

Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerTwin brothers, Drs. Vance (left) and Vince Moss stand in their Howell medical office next to a photo of them taken during their recent deployment to Afghanistan.
The doctors receiving them were unsure what to do about the information until one correctly predicted a bombing in Mehtar Lam, a provincial capital in the country’s east.

"That’s when we started forwarding them to the State Department," says Vincent Moss.

The suicide bombing killed 21 people Sept. 2, including the second-ranking official of the Afghan intelligence services, a close ally of the nation’s president.

"We figured if these people knew what they were talking about, we shouldn’t ignore them — other people with responsibility had to know," says the cardiac surgeon. He runs the medical office with his identical twin, Vance, a urologist and surgeon.

The Moss twins say the e-mails came from village leaders and local doctors the two physicians worked with in three trips to the country.

"They trusted us and we trust them because they took care of us when we were there," says Vince.

The brothers, 38, are both majors in the Army Reserve who spent a tour of duty in Iraq last year. In September, they returned from their third trip to Afghanistan in three years, traveling for a month to eastern areas close to the Pakistani border.

They bring medical supplies to local clinics and perform surgery on residents, concentrating on children. Despite their military status, they go unarmed and say they rely primarily on local villagers for security.

"We’re never sure exactly who we’re meeting with,’’ says Vance. "We don’t know who’s Taliban and who’s not. That’s not the point — we’re there to help people."

The physicians, who grew up in Maryland but now live in New Jersey, believe their kind of work holds the key to success in Afghanistan.

"If two doctors working there for a month can build the level of trust we enjoy, imagine what 50 American doctors could do working there yearlong," Vance says.

"The people need doctors and teachers and carpenters and plumbers more than they need soldiers."

The physicians were invited to present their case to State Department officials in Washington, D.C., in September. They contended the United States should rely less on military intervention in favor of civilian assistance directly to villages and tribal leaders.

"We think too much of sides there," says Vince. "The Taliban side versus the American-backed government side. But, in fact, the Afghan people we know don’t think of sides; they think of what’s in their best interests on the ground."

The Taliban, which ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, at least provided security and some measure of services, the brothers argue.

"We need a surge — but a surge of civilian experts," says Vince.

They say that, as soldiers, they will support whatever President Obama announces as the new American policy Monday, but they hope it emphasizes building infrastructure over military action.

The doctors — they are both single — began their work in Afghanistan in 2005, working with nongovernmental organizations that were trying to provide medical services. They say they have performed more than 1,000 minor — and nearly 500 major — surgical procedures in their three trips.

They say they earned the trust of Afghans because they concentrated on children, including the children of warlords and tribal chiefs.

One of their sources has told the Moss brothers he has been in touch with militants holding Bowe Bergdahl, a private from Idaho who Army officials say was kidnapped in July. The source e-mailed the brothers that Bergdahl "is still alive and doing well" — and the Mosses relayed that information to the State Department.

On their first trip, Vince and Vance Moss offered an unusual service — Viagra, a treatment for erectile dysfunction. It contributed to the twins’ popularity.

"A lot of these leaders have a number of wives, and potency is an important issue for them," says Vance. "We discovered almost by accident the power of the blue pill."

On their latest trip, Vance says they learned Western intelligence agents also had begun providing Viagra to tribal leaders in return for information. This concerns the doctors, says Vance, because older men with cardiac or blood pressure problems could risk heart attacks and strokes from using the drug.

"I hope the intelligence people were as careful about prescribing it as we were," says Vance.